The budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, the State Department by 28 percent and Health and Human Services by 17.9 percent. Funding to several smaller government agencies that have long been targets of conservatives — like the Legal Services Corporation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts — would be axed entirely.
The chances of Mr. Trump’s first budget passing Congress in its current form are slim. Many of the proposals would be nonstarters for Democrats, and some would be problematic for Republicans. The proposed $54 billion increase in military spending — a 10 percent increase — would also require a repeal of spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act; Democrats oppose such a move without equal spending increases for domestic programs.
The brunt of the cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services would be at the National Institutes of Health, the country’s medical research hub. The $403 million currently used for training nurses and other medical professionals would also be eliminated.
